The new Viburnum cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, Timothy D. Wood, in Grand Haven, Mich. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new Viburnum varieties of compact habit better container presence, with new and better foliage types. The open pollination resulting in this new variety was made during Summer of 2007.
The seed parent is an unpatented, unnamed variety Viburnum dentatum. The pollen parent is unknown, as it was an open pollination breeding program. The new variety was identified as a potentially interesting selection in 2009, at a commercial greenhouse in Grand Haven, Mich.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘SMVDE’ by softwood cuttings was first performed during the June of 2009, at a commercial greenhouse in Grand Haven, Mich. Subsequent propagation has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in 3 successive generations.